Jason Kidd has come under fire in the early stages of his second career, taking on more scrutiny than any first-year coach in recent memory.

Some of it has been warranted. Kidd has brought attention to himself by serving a suspension for a DWI, being fined $50,000 for his "hit me" antics and re-assigning assistant Lawrence Frank.

Nets coach Jason Kidd (AP Photo)

A lot of the basketball problems for the Nets, however, stem from the litany of injuries on the roster and Kidd learning on the job, at least that's how former coach Stan Van Gundy sees it (via ProBasketballTalk).

“I don’t think this is on Jason Kidd," Van Gundy said on Armani and Eyton show. "Some people have really taken a lot of what I said about him as being critical of him but it’s not. I think if you look at Mark Jackson or Doc Rivers when he started, guys who have not been assistant coaches before they got their NBA head jobs, what they had was situations where at least in their first year the expectations weren’t that high. So you had the freedom to make some mistakes, sorta out of the scrutiny, at least the national scrutiny, of everybody.

“Jason Kidd entered a job with very high expectations, for a guy who never coached I think that’s really, really difficult. He may grow into a very, very fine coach — but no one is a great coach when they first start. I’m sure Doc Rivers would tell you in all honesty that he is a far better coach now than he was when he first started. Not to say he wasn’t good when he started but you get a lot better over time. Jason Kidd was expected to be great.”

And those expectations are unfair to some extent, especially when one considers the fact that Kidd transitioned from being a veteran guard to coaching veterans over the course of a summer.

Now, as I said above, he has certainly fanned the fire. The scrutiny would have been there regardless because of the Nets stars and the size of their contracts, but the jokes and ridicule was brought on by Kidd.